


Why don't children come with manuals?

by renecdote



Series: hc_bingo 2017 [20]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce is a tired dad, Family Dynamics, Fighting, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-28 22:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13281069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: Bruce doesn't understand why his children can't just get along.





	Why don't children come with manuals?

**Author's Note:**

> For the "fighting" square on my hurt/comfort bingo card.

Being a parent is hard. It took Bruce much too long to realise this, so busy the first years Dick was his ward living in denial that that’s what he had become. They weren’t father and son, he kept telling himself, they were partners.

He can admit, looking back, that (as Alfred pointed out to him many times) he may have been in denial. A  lot little bit.

These days, he spends too much time breaking up fights and dolling out groundings to even pretend that he’s not a single father of five - six? seven? do the ones he hasn’t actually adopted still count? - headache inducing kids. He should probably be doing one, likely both, of those things right now, if the sounds coming from down the hall are any indication. Yelling and screaming, a few suspicious crashes and thumps. One that is definitely a shattering plate. Damian and Tim, most likely. Bruce’s fingers hover over his keyboard. He really should go see what that’s all about…. 

A new voice joins the fray and he sighs in relief. Dick. Dick can handle it. Handling those two is something his eldest is so much better at than Bruce is. He’s not sure whether it’s because he missed so much while lost in time, or because he lacks Dick’s special brand of… he wants to say empathy but really it’s just Dick. Dick is naturally good with people, good with emotions, and that makes him good with his siblings. 

Down the hall, the yelling has faded to angry talking. Peace negotiations. Which means that any minute now…

_ Knock knock knock. _

There. Time for sentencing. Dick will vacillate between big brother and parental figure a lot, but one thing he is reluctant to do is punish his brothers. Even Alfred tends to offload that duty onto Bruce’s shoulders. 

“Come in,” Bruce calls, leaning back in his chair and resigning himself to another half hour or more of no work. Ending a fight between Tim and Damian is never as simple as sending them to their rooms or cutting batcomputer privileges. There’s usually finger pointing and defensive pleading and one or two more quarrels about who said what. It’s a long, exhausting process guaranteed to end with Bruce getting the cold shoulder from one of them.

Dick is first through the door, hand around a scowling Damian’s upper arm. Tim trudges in behind them, an unhappy frown on his face as he slouches into one of the chairs in front of Bruce’s desk. Damian sits primly in the other.

“What was it this time?” Bruce asks. He does not sigh, because sighing would show how weary of all this he is. And while with Dick or Cass that’s guaranteed to win him a reprieve, with his youngest two it’s just as likely to make them up their fighting.

“Drake attacked me,” Damian says, glaring at Tim.

Tim snorts. “You managed to find the wall with your face well enough on your own.”

And, as usual, it devolves from there. By the time Bruce shoos them all out of his study and drops his head in his hands, he’s sure he has another few grey hairs. Dick and Jason never fought like this. Squabbled, yes. Wrestled, yes. But they never  _ fought _ . Not the way Tim and Damian do.

A lot of people have accused Bruce of not understanding his children (most often the children in question), and they’re usually wrong. Understanding things is basically his night job. But in this instance he really, truly does not understand his children. Why can’t they just get along? They seem to manage it with every sibling other than each other.

It would be so easy to peg Damian as the underlying problem since all this sibling fighting only started after he joined the family. But he gets along well enough with Jason and Cass, and more than well enough with Dick. He’s a good kid. Prickly and defensive a lot of the time, but good. It’s just Tim he doesn’t like.

And Tim gives as good as he gets. He’s just as often the antagonist as the victim, more likely to snap back than to remove himself from the situation. But just like Damian, he doesn’t have the same kind of fraught relationship with his other siblings. Sure, he and Jason aren’t ever going to be the best of friends, but they’re not constantly at each other’s throats for even the smallest of slights. It’s just Damian he doesn’t like. No amount of forced bonding or parental intervention seems likely to change that any time soon.

“Where did I go wrong?” Bruce asks no one in particular. And if he just so happens to be looking up at the portrait of his parents as he says it… Well. He wouldn’t be the first to seek advice from the dead. Not the first parent to be disappointed when no advice or sudden epiphany is forthcoming either. He sighs. Maybe Alfred with have some ideas...

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [here](tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com).


End file.
